Announcing freesewing, an open source platform for made-to-measure sewing patterns

But I’m also realistic, and understand that you don’t have time to plow through pages upon pages of documentation.

So instead, here’s a story to give you the essence of freesewing in a nutshell:

The freesewing origin story

Sewing is easy. It really is.
What’s hard is getting things to fit properly.
That’s why you use a sewing pattern.
It’s a blueprint for whatever it is you are making.
A good pattern gives you good fit. Most patterns don’t.

That’s because — much like clothes in the shop — patterns come in sizes.
And sizes are a crude way to put people in boxes.
They are made for an imaginary average person, rather than for you.

There’s another way, and that is to draft a pattern based on your measurements.
These made-to-measure patterns are vastly superior, but they require a lot of work.

I wanted to change that, and that effort evolved into
MakeMyPattern.com.
I ran that site for a number of years, and it was a remarkable success.
Probably helped by the fact that I gave away all patterns for free.

In the world of home sewing, it tends to require a bit of
explaining why one would choose to give away their work for free.
Things are different in the open source world where the idea of
sharing your work with others for the benefit of all is
the very thread from which communities are woven.

While I can’t magically bring the culture of open source
to sewing patterns, I certainly can bring sewing patterns
into the open source world.

Freesewing.org will continue to offer what
Makemypattern.com does today:
free sewing patterns drafted to your measurements.
But additionally, it will be open to your contributions.

Here’s hoping that in the Venn diagram of the somewhat geeky and sewing,
it’s not just me in the middle.